Too Close For Comfort (31 page)

Frustration finally got the better of me, erupted out.

‘If I
was
weird in the car, it was because I’d just seen her vile, entitled brats telling that poor au pair she was their slave. She must be so desperate to
put up with it – whoever Susan was, she obviously couldn’t stand it.’ Lysette’s face froze as she heard the name, blanched itself of colour. I should’ve stopped, asked
her where the shock was stemming from, but I was on too much of a roll. I’d trotted out the party line instead of the truth for too long, and now it became a toxic tide. ‘She’s
always undermining me – did you not hear that dig she made about how useless my job was in the car? And I had every right to be upset about you telling her about . . . about that. It’s
none of her fucking business.’

Lysette’s pale face had closed in on itself like an origami fold. We’d lost each other all over again.

‘So you
were
upset with her. She was right.’

The edit she’d made of what I’d just said felt like a kick in the guts. How long was the list of friends who meant more to her than I did?

‘You don’t think she’s even a tiny bit manipulative?’ I hissed. ‘From what you said about the famous quiz night, it certainly sounds like Sarah did.’ I wanted
to call the words back as soon as they’d escaped my stupid mouth, but it was too late. Lysette stood up, her hands visibly shaking.

‘Lys, I’m sorry. Sit down, I shouldn’t have brought Sarah into it . . .’

‘I need to get some air.’ She threw the words over her shoulder, already stalking off.

I should have slipped away, trusted the cold light of day to make things better, but something inside me wouldn’t let me accept defeat. Instead I sat there on the bench
– my bum aching from resting on cold and unyielding ancient stone, my heart pounding so hard I could hear the pulse in my ears – waiting to decide what I should do. The crowd acted as a
human curtain, but I was too close to the loos to rely on staying hidden from all the people I wanted to avoid. Eventually Alex appeared out of the crush, looking left and right like a suspicious
dormouse coming out of hibernation. She gave me a brisk smile and made her way over.

‘You made it, then,’ she said. ‘Kimberley got you all kitted out?’

Her own outfit was wilfully dowdy, a shapeless and faded cotton dress, black its only concession to formality. Her shoes were flat and buckled, reminiscent of the kind I endlessly battled with
my mum about when I was at primary school. I looked at them now with a certain envy, my feet aching and throbbing in the deluxe torture chamber of my borrowed high heels.

‘She certainly did,’ I said. Was there something knowing in that smile? It emboldened me. ‘Did you not fancy the chance to run wild in her wardrobe?’

‘I know my limitations, Mia. Glamour isn’t something I prize.’

The way she said it sounded liberated, not bitter. What had brought her into their inner sanctum, brought her here?

‘Fair enough.’ I felt foolish suddenly, sitting there alone on my bench. I stood up. ‘Are you having a nice evening?’

‘Useful might be a better word. There’s a lot of faculty here.’ I followed her gaze, the players more visible now I was standing up. Kimberley was laughing at something Jake
was saying, her head thrown back, Lysette kept close, like a toddler’s favourite toy. ‘There’s a certain irony in raising money for desperate children with a champagne knees-up
rather than a tax rise, but if it works . . .’

This time the look we exchanged said it all.

‘Isn’t there just?’ I said.

‘You’re going home in a few days, aren’t you?’ she said, intelligent eyes searching my face. ‘Maybe we’ll see each other again in happier
circumstances.’

I sensed it was a tacit apology.

‘I need a pee,’ I said, not trusting myself to come up with the right reply. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’

*

I headed for the immaculate gardens first in a vain attempt to clear my head. I stood there in the half-light, surrounded by women in mountains of taffeta, who looked like
they’d stepped straight out of the pages of a mildewed copy of
Country Life
. Most people were smoking, blissfully unaware of how flammable their dresses likely were.
I did need a pee it turned out – three glasses of champagne and a bucketload of stress will do that to a person – so I slipped back inside. I couldn’t face crossing the main room
again; instead I headed deep into the warren-like building in search of alternative facilities.

Even the loos were ancient: the cubicles had wooden doors and the china cisterns had elaborate pull flushes that wouldn’t have looked out of place in
Downton
. The
bathroom was deserted, so I sat there longer than necessary, reluctantly admitting to myself that what I should probably do was quit while I was . . . not exactly ahead, but in a place where things
were still salvageable. I felt a stab of sadness. Salvageable wasn’t good enough, not for any of my relationships. I scrabbled in my bag for my phone: nothing from Patrick. I didn’t
text him – anything I came up with sounded either maudlin or shallow or both. I could’ve called him, but I couldn’t face him humouring me, listening with half an ear to my
schoolgirl complaints whilst he dealt with the kind of gruesome horrors that he routinely shielded me from. The clockwork mechanism inside a relationship is so fine, so delicate. If one tiny piece
ceases to work, the whole can simply shudder to a stop.

I yanked the flush, water cascading into the bowl, Niagara style. I heard it immediately: a scrabbling sound, a muted giggle which seemed to be coming from another cubicle. ‘Ssh,’
said a low voice, which sounded suspiciously like Kimberley’s. More giggling. A cubicle suddenly burst open, two pairs of heels clacking loudly across the stone floor like energetically
played maracas. I could’ve rushed out, copped a look, but I didn’t. Instead I sat there, my brain whirring. Was it what I thought it was?
Who
I thought it was?
Would Kimberley really be that stupid? To threaten Nigel’s career like that – to take drugs at a charity ball, press more present than ever in the aftermath of Sarah’s death
– surely not? I thought of their stamping, wild-eyed frenzy after his speech, the jagged unpredictability of Lysette’s mood: I needed to get out of here. I crossed to the sinks, my
actions calm and deliberate. I washed my hands, the old-fashioned bar of soap heavy and slippery between my palms. I applied more lipstick, baring my teeth to check for smearing. I’d go and
say some polite goodbyes, thank Kimberley for her uncomfortable dress through gritted teeth. I’d be dignified. Dignified and distant. Anything more would only cause more harm.

When I stepped back into the main room, I could sense immediately that something had shifted. The music was no longer elegant and tinkly; it had a beat to it. People were more raucous, empty
glasses stacking up on the tables that ringed the room. I stood on the sidelines a second.

‘Mia? There you are!’ It was Helena. ‘I thought you’d snuck off. Decided it was all a bit Home Counties for you.’

‘Of course not,’ I said, half wishing I had. Why was I still trying to win the PR battle?

I spotted them then, Kimberley and Lysette, dancing together near the makeshift stage. Kimberley was elegantly gyrating, lithe body corkscrewing to the music, but Lysette was doing something
else entirely. She’d given herself entirely to it, her eyes somewhere else, somewhere unreachable. A cold, trickling sensation gripped my insides, the impossibility of detachment obvious the
minute I laid eyes on her. Helena followed my gaze, then looked away, her discomfort like static electricity.

‘They certainly know how to have a good time,’ I said.

‘Yeah, yeah, they do,’ said Helena, sounding almost guilty.

Lysette’s pale, bare arms were flung above her head, whirling through the air: it was hard not to feel hurt at her total lack of concern for what had happened between us. A few more people
had started dancing now, but no one else was behaving like they’d been transplanted directly from Studio 64. I discreetly scanned the room for Jim, but there was no sign of him. If he
wasn’t with Rowena, I knew instinctively that he’d be outside, chain smoking Marlboro Lights and smirking at the taffeta. The certainty irritated me – the reminder that you
can’t ever un-know someone who has at one time been your everything. That there will always be a place deep inside of you that they’ll have somehow annexed, made uninhabitable for
anyone who sets up camp in your future.

‘It’s a shame your boyfriend couldn’t come,’ said Helena, turning towards me. I could tell she was trying to distract me from the heightened tableau ten yards away.
‘I reckon Chris would’ve appreciated someone new to hang out with. He hates this kind of thing.’

Despite her pretence at conversation, her eyes were still trained on Lysette and Kimberley, an air of distraction about her. Was she breakable right now?

‘Lysette seems . . .’ But before I’d had time to broach what it was I wanted to say, Nigel had glided between us. I felt a light touch on the small of my back, his other hand
landing briefly on Helena.

‘How are you glamorous creatures enjoying your evening?’ he asked, his fingers increasing their pressure. ‘Would you deem it a success?’

Helena’s smile was bashful: I found it almost repellent how starstruck everyone seemed to be, even their inner circle. I discreetly shifted my body away.

‘It’s impressive,’ I said, cool. ‘You certainly know how to create an occasion.’

Nigel gave a modest shrug.

‘I’m just the figurehead. Glad you approve.’

His eyes had moved to Kimberley. They watched each other a second, before she beckoned him over with a feline curl of her hand.

‘Don’t let us keep you from the dancing,’ I said. Lysette had spotted me now.

‘Not really my thing,’ he said, the words as dry and stiff as cardboard. He gave a rueful shrug, headed towards her, as much for the benefit of the bug-eyed guests as anything else,
I suspected. There was an odd dislocation about them. Lysette meanwhile was crossing the floor in the opposite direction.

‘Mia,’ she said. I’d expected slurring, a lack of focus, but the opposite was true. Her eyes were sharp and bright, her expression determined. ‘Let’s go outside,
talk.’ The words came fast, each one tumbling on top of the next. ‘Sorry, Hels, you don’t mind, do you?’

Helena murmured her assent, and she pulled me away, brooking no argument. She took a deep swig from her glass, her jaw subtly moving up and down.

‘The garden’s full of smokers,’ I said, mulish.

‘We’re not going there,’ she said, fingers digging into my bare arm. ‘We’re going round the back. It’s an adventure!’

She led me through some more labyrinthine corridors, then out into a small stone courtyard. The darkness had fully taken hold now, with only a faint glow from the main atrium offering a trace of
light. The silence was absolute too – we’d strayed too far from the party to hear an echo of the hubbub. Ivy hung low from the ancient brickwork, and I pushed it away from my face. It
was all a bit too Gothic for my liking. There were a couple of wrought-iron chairs next to a little table, and Lysette threw herself down in one, scrabbling in her clutch bag for a cigarette. As
she flamed her lighter, her face – familiar and alien all at once – loomed out of the darkness. That manic glint in her eye was more than adrenalin and alcohol, I knew it for sure now.
I felt a chill run through me that was about more than my bare arms. I’d never been around her on drugs – until a few weeks ago I’d never even considered the idea they were still
a part of her life. Did I really want to start now?

‘So why did you want to come out here?’ I said, a coldness in my voice.

‘Don’t, OK? Don’t let’s be like this with each other any more. I can’t stand it. Let’s just . . .’ She reached across the metal table, her chair legs
squealing against the flagstones, and grabbed both my hands. ‘Truce?’

Any words I could summon up seemed to be lodged in my throat. I couldn’t bring myself to trust the rambling sentimentality that comes from a bottle or a line – I’d been burned
too many times, seen my dad turn on a sixpence and ultimately become so dangerous to my emotional health that I’d had to spend twenty years estranged from him.

‘Of course I don’t want to fall out with you,’ I said, my formality like a straitjacket. I shivered, wrapped my arms around myself in a poor approximation of a hug.

‘Don’t be like that!’ she begged. ‘Don’t be all . . . Mia 2.0. I just haven’t been able to talk to you properly. I haven’t been able to talk to you for
ages.’

‘Why not?’ I said, the hurt blooming in my voice. Here it was: the confirmation that it was more than Sarah’s death that had alienated us. That I’d somehow failed
her.

She spoke with a quiet intensity. ‘Because you wouldn’t have liked me.’

My hurt and anger intensified.

‘You set me up every time. You make out that I’m this judgemental bitch, who thinks I’m better than you, and it’s not true.’

‘I see the way you watch my wine glass, Mia . . .’

She took a defiant gulp as she said it.

‘That’s . . . you know what I’m like. My dad . . . you were there!’ I paused, our shared history rearing up towards me. ‘Is it so bad, anyway, that I worry about
you? When you’re going through all of this? You asked me to come here!’

Even in the faint light, I could pick out the bleakness in her face that felt like more than grief. She pulled the last drag from her fag, lit the next one off it, her hands shaking.

‘Our lives are like . . .’

She held her hands apart.

‘But it doesn’t matter!’ I said. ‘It shouldn’t matter – we all get so hung up on what’s different. Do you not think I feel like I’ve failed when
everyone’s going on about their perfect families? Women get set these impossible ideals and then we end up turning on each other . . .’

Now I’d climbed onto my soapbox she’d stopped listening. She gave a dry laugh.

‘Perfect? Is that what it looks like?’

‘No, of course not. I’m not that naive. I can see you’ve been having a hard time for ages. You’re in debt – you’re . . . Lys, I know you’re taking coke.
You’ve taken it now, haven’t you? I’m not judging you for any of it. I just want to be a friend to you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,’ I added, my voice cracking
a bit.